


dreamscape

by athina39 (setosdarkness)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dystopia, Flash Forward, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-02
Updated: 2008-12-02
Packaged: 2021-01-06 07:36:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21222941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/setosdarkness/pseuds/athina39
Summary: Oliver Payne—just a simple man universally considered a loser by every person he meets, without any redeeming factors to his persona—dreams of the future.A future where he's with the world's dictator.[originally posted in a now-deleted livejournal account last DEC 2, 2008]





	dreamscape

**dreamscape**

* * *

Five years old was when he first saw a dream of the future.

It wasn't anything special—after all, kids dreamed about the next day's adventures, the next meal's contents, the next hour's plays as often as grins graced their innocent faces.

He was enjoying dinner with his parents (who were home early from work) and older sister (who had just completed the next day's schoolwork) when it happened. It was a sudden, overwhelming pain on his temples—and that was when he blacked out. But only he didn't really black out—no, not really—his mind back then had been bombarded by alpha waves that brought together a vision of his future.

He saw himself then—in front of a full-length mirror, adjusting a red-colored tie, before gracefully shrugging on a crisp suit that his five-year-old self could only dream to wear. He saw himself—preparing a suitcase that looked heavy at first glance, dragging the luggage out of the posh hotel room he's occupying, nodding curtly to two guards stationed right outside the door. He saw himself—carelessly, automatically, flipping open a high-tech-looking cellphone without glancing at the caller ID or the digital time, opening his lips to acknowledge the person on the other line: "A—"

…That was all that he saw, and he opened his eyes again, free of the incredible pressure on his head, back to the world where he's a five-year-old with no suits, ties or personal bodyguards. His parents looked at him oddly, while his older sister carried on with her systematic eating, unbothered by the pause in the dinner proceedings. He blinked, almost as though to chase any leftover traces of that dream away, but the images remained visible, if only a little translucent, behind his eyes.

He grinned then, because children in general possess higher tolerance for strange happenings. He proudly related the short vision that flashed in front of him, the brief clipping of what could only be a taste of a future maybe ten or fifteen years from now. He told them all about the fashionable clothes, the way his hair would grow out be slightly curlier, the way his glasses would be less nerdy-looking but more business-like. He told them all about it—and they only patted his head and squeezed his hands and said something about him just having a hyperactive imagination… before resuming their dinner as though there hadn't been any interruptions.

(He wouldn't learn of it until much later, that they also dreamed, for the same duration as he, but they dreamed of nothing but nothingness.)

* * *

Almost like a standardized opening scene to usher in his morning classes, Oliver gets his face smashed against metal lockers that sputter digital whines about fingerprint recognition failures. The locker owners are either already ensconced inside their respective classrooms or already lined up like vultures waiting to tear apart an abandoned, reeking carcass. Intuitively, he keeps his eyes screwed shut as low-voltage electricity hums insistently against his skin; the air is sharp and tense with inhumane enjoyment soaking the atmosphere.

"Why are you even here, you piece of shit?"

His ears faintly register a set of cruel words targeted at him, but the inflection and the pronunciation both tread over unfamiliarity—he hazards a guess on what the person is saying, not that it matters in the long run. Distantly, the sound of rhythmic tunes resonates in the hallways, creeping closer and closer to his consciousness. It's the bell, he realizes with a sort of apathetic wonder. The first bell is simply a five-minute warning for students loitering around in the corridors to start hurrying towards their corresponding classrooms; in just five more minutes, the hallways will be emptied and he will be left alone to his own devices.

It really is a standard part of his morning, this type of treatment. More sounds spill out from talkative lips, bouncing and ricocheting against pristine tiles and clear glass windows, and he doesn't even bother to attempt guessing on the meaning behind their chatter.

The bullies seem to have detected his added layer of eagerness to wait for the final bell for the hour, as they scramble to haul him away from the discomfort of getting closely acquainted with the lockers, and instead gleefully test the supposed claim that the glass windows are damage-proof. He thinks his left ankle twists into an uncompromising position as he's unreservedly dragged towards the windows, the hand at the back of his neck is heavy and coarse. The unforgiving grip on his upper right arm almost feels capable of ripping out his skin from his limb. Everything happens lightning-fast—the only thunder that booms in his ears is the sound of his nose breaking and splattering against the bullet-proof glass window. He futilely keeps his eyes screwed shut—not because of some low-grade cowardice at seeing his bloodied form—but because his eyelids don't possess enough wiggle room to actually lift up: the bullies are simply too insistent in keeping his face shoved painfully against the hard surface. He doesn't even dare to breathe through his slightly parted, slightly torn lips; the lack of extra oxygen burns in his lungs but there's nothing quite like the burn of humiliation for an ordinary student like him.

He's already dreading the inordinate amount of time that he will be spending next to this panel of glass, undoubtedly because the composition of the school's board of directors are all parents of the parasitic students that make his everyday life hellish. He'll be the one held responsible for this bout of bullying, never mind the fact that there's nobody on their proper mind who'd gladly invite this type of treatment from fellow students. He can already almost taste the bitterness in his tongue as he will undoubtedly listen to a tirade about personal responsibilities and accountabilities. He will definitely be asked to scrub and bleach this entire area clean, as though it was his fault that his blood is liberally sprayed like a geyser here.

…Why is he even here?

"Whoa, circus started early!?" Despite the excited words and inflection, there's nothing but disinterest in the newcomer's tone. While Oliver's face remains uncomfortably pressed against the glass window eliminating any hope of him catching a glance of the person who effortlessly suffocates the cacophony of animalistic noise with just his mere presence, _he knows_ who the new arrival is. Everybody knows who he is, because he's the unrivaled _king_ of the entire school. "…Isn't it too early for this shit?"

Suddenly losing the only grip keeping him vertically upright brings Oliver trickling down to the floor. The bully in charge of holding him up and forcing him against the window must have lost all semblance of rational thought at the sight of the undisputed ruler of the hallways. _He_'s nothing but a low-grade terrorist to Oliver's eyes, but there's a reason why he's the outcast and he's the usual stress ball for the delinquent members of their academic community.

"This is just an early rehearsal," while breathing through a clogged and broken appendage otherwise known as his nose, Oliver offers an outlandishly lighthearted retort from his glorious spot near the floor, his feet unable to even twitch from the onslaught of pain and shock. He could _see_ his ankle swelling progressively; he's patiently awaiting the onslaught of pain that will surely burst like an overstretched balloon once he gets over the initial strangeness and surprise.

The noise of the final bell is unnoticeably quiet compared to the enforced silence by the other's presence. Droplets of blood trickle down like desolate raindrops upon the now-tarnished floor. Oliver gingerly lifts an arm that doesn't cooperate with his limbic system in order to wipe the blood away from his nostrils and his lips. Preferences for taste and hygiene aside, having his own blood scurrying inside the cracks of his lips is a supremely unpleasant sensation. He has long given up in fixing his physical appearances, but he'd like to maintain at least one sense of humanity by not having a profusely bleeding nose. His ribs shudder and shiver and before he knows it, he's coughing, the painful motion exacerbated by the severe bruising on his abdomen, courtesy of some well-placed steel-toed kicks.

There's a sound that suspiciously sounds like a sigh of frustration.

Simultaneously, Oliver loathes and likes that sound—has learned to feel split-emotions about it after hearing it for so long.

"…Damn, it really is too early for this shit."

Additional abuse to his twisted ankle or to his bruised diaphragm doesn't come as he's mentally prepared himself for. The long set of uninterrupted footsteps confirms to him that the newcomer has decided to let the matter go for now. The tense silence dissipates to a merely empty one and Oliver breathes in ragged breath. His entire body whines with the immense pain that has been a part of his everyday routine.

Classes are now starting, with students diligently paying attention to the lessons and with the teachers imparting their experience and knowledge to their students. Aside from his forlorn presence in the hallway, broken in ways startlingly too many to count, there's no more evidence of what just transpired minutes ago. The students are simply not going to submit themselves to the discipline committee and the teachers are certainly not going to risk their employment by seeking out the perpetrators of the daily bullying.

Despite the world's decisive way of ignoring his circumstances, Oliver somehow still cares a little bit. He's more than sufficiently worried at the head tormentor's quiet disappearance earlier—a frustrated sigh only escapes that man's lips whenever he's prevented from enjoying the bloodbath that he craves. There's four more hours until lunch time and Oliver doubts that the other's patience can handle that long waiting time for someone to fall into his clutches for the sole recognition of getting beat up especially today. Actually, it's more than likely that there will be a classroom's worth of students that will taste the head bully's torment today—this is the first day after the weekend; surely the other has missed the taste of tormenting his own schoolmates.

…But martyrdom is overrated and not applicable for a lynch-mob-target like him. There's all pain and no gain for him if he seeks out his tormentor in hopes of diverting the other's suffocating attention away from the other normal students.

Oliver's head spins like a deranged pinwheel once he makes a valiant attempt to slide up against the bulletproof windows. The floor and the tiles and the lockers and the ceiling loom menacingly in front of his irises and he blinks a number of times to wash the images away. He's experienced worse beatings so this level of torment shouldn't be a challenge—that's what he keeps on telling himself in quiet, reserved tones. He can still go on cleaning the hallways before he expects to feel the overwhelming nausea and fatigue that will surely send him straight to the infirmary. It's better to start on his punishment now while he still can instead of procrastinating.

He sighs and instead of alleviating a little bit of the heavy resentment that clenches on his chest, there's only an outspread of pain from his disturbed organs.

"…it really is too early for this," he mumbles to himself, closing his eyes for a moment of respite.

—and then, like a ceremony, pictures cascade into his mind with the swell of blood pounding in his temples—

* * *

> Two guards stationed outside the hotel door follow his sluggish, awkward movements with attentive eyes, ready to press one finger to the Bluetooth communicator snugly clasped on their left earlobe, ready to draw singlehandedly one of the guns strapped to either side of their belt holsters, ready to open their mouths to yell a distress signal or scream a bloodthirsty roar. Two competent bodyguards dragged to this five-star hotel that utterly rejects people who haven't experienced millionairehood since birth, lured past the gaping inadequacies of their employer's moral standards into the deep belly of greed shaped by crisp banknotes.
> 
> Tripping slightly over one mildly raised indentation on the floor almost makes the guards rush forward, because the supreme command given to them is to prioritize the safety and wellbeing of the suitcase he's dragging around. There's no sense of jealousy or envy coming from him, who is blatantly considered as less important than a luggage-piece with papers and light metals inside. He was the one who wished for things to be this way, after all; also, getting appraised to be of much lesser value has always been the song of his life.
> 
> "Arriving in fifteen minutes," he lets his voice drift along the empty corridors of this hotel's twenty-third floor, because whispering his reply to the curt question of his caller will just exacerbate his conversation partner's always-foul mood, and the action might just go ahead and trigger suspicion flags in his bodyguards' eyes, "and fourteen seconds."
> 
> Timing of his movements, no matter how sluggish, is exact to the second. It's not some made-up number just to sound smart and accurate; it's a value born of months of planning and careful measurement. Everything that he's been doing for the past week is part of a grand plan that leaves no room for error or inaccuracy.
> 
> He faithfully listens to each word that crackles between their handsets, as time trickles down like the liquid acid rain droplets pouring from the ominously dark clouds above this skyscraper's helicopter pad floor. "Affirmative," he replies finally, barely above a whisper; and then, almost carefully, "…See you later."
> 
> Dial tone serves as his reply as his conversation partner disconnects without further ado. With lightning-fast movements, a hallmark of repeated actions, he tucks his phone inside the inner-sleeve-pocket of his coat, before smoothing over any imaginary wrinkles on his clothing. Unlike the secure, untraceable location where the other man is currently located, the place he's about to visit is the den of starving lions—rivals that possess insurmountable, unimaginable power. Without someone to talk to now, his movements grow brisker although he still has ample remaining time.
> 
> By the time he reaches the elevator lobby that will bring him up to the awaiting helicopter, there's nobody within vicinity that could witness the press of his gloved finger against the upwards arrow, just as there's no spectator around that could notice the tension that wounds tightly over his limbs.
> 
> 'Ding', the metallic chambers greet him before the doors slide open to let him inside, followed by another 'ding' once he presses the special button marked 'R' hidden inside a locked control pad underneath the numbers 81-99.
> 
> Smooth silence is the only accompaniment for his trip skywards, something that will change the moment the thick, double-doors slide open once more to allow him access to the rain-battered helicopter pad at the very top of this skyscraper.
> 
> Both hands rest on the insides of his pockets, barely registering his purchase's cool texture.
> 
> 'Ding', the metallic chambers greet him less than a minute later, 'ding'.
> 
> And he lifts his shoulders a little higher as he stares at the men awaiting his arrival with a weather-tempered gaze. Men, who are supposedly working for him, in accordance to his interests and in obeisance to the employment contract between them, return his cold gaze with glares of their own, friendliness and camaraderie severely lacking in the atmosphere.
> 
> He smiles, a small quirk of his lips, as he gamely recognizes their decisions.
> 
> Then, a split-second afterwards, he reveals the amount of faith he has placed on his hired bodyguards, by squeezing the triggers held by his now-raised hands.

* * *

Days melt into weeks ooze into months; as seasons fold one page atop of each other on the book of his thickening medical records and incident reports, Oliver spends more and more time inside sterilized hospital walls and hypersensitive vital statistic monitors. His visits to the infirmary almost follow a regular schedule, with each stay lengthening exponentially with each return. He doesn't grow any closer to any of the staff, surprisingly—or maybe not, considering his status in the eyes of every single person who meets him. But that's more than fine for him; he isn't terribly interested in shallow company of hellos and greetings and smiles and _fakeness_ amidst the murky, dirty colors of humanity.

Diving headfirst into the world of books and information has always been more preferable for him, even during his childhood days spent mostly in the confines of his own home and its surrounding greenery. Back then, being a social outcast was more of a result of overwhelming parental concern and some smidges of politics. Right now, being alone is considered a great truth that can't be moved by even the greatest forces.

…It suits him just as well.

Oliver foregoes the heavy hardbound version of the fiction epic he's currently reading because his hands are a little tired, gingerly sliding the book to the bedside table devoid of any get-well wishes and well-meaning gifts. It has been nearly two hours since his most recent checkup and subsequent blood tests; the attending nurse was paying more attention to her coworkers' idle gossip than to locating the vein on his forearm, granting him two sloppy attempts at forcing him to evolve to a pincushion. He's been through much worse, he's aware, but he isn't the type to eagerly seek out more pain to his person; he can't help feeling a tad irked at the small transgressions that infringe on his very boring and unfulfilling life.

He stares at the blissfully empty room he's currently holed in. There's not much to see—the glass windows are shut, heavy curtains streaming down until the floor, fluorescent lights bright to the point of annoyance.

Only inanimate things serve as his company, yet for some reason, recently, that bothers him less than it should.

* * *

> Three minutes after the first gunshot rings like a death knell amidst the background of crying acid clouds, silence reigns once more, only interspersed by brief but powerful gusts of wind. Despite the cover provided by his gloves, his fingers still shiver from a mixture of cold and nerves. He sidesteps the haphazard pile of still-warm corpses as he maneuvers his suitcase while making sure to reduce the amount of staining on the luggage. No complaints erupt whenever he trips slightly and knocks the wheels against a splayed arm or leg.
> 
> He foregoes contacting the twin bodyguards half a building away, not because of some displaced sense of pride; not only does he not have much time to spare, there's also a seventy-nine percent chance that the duo would prefer the honey-sweet promise of money rather than keeping their lives intact. More importantly, there's always an unpredictable chance that a certain someone will take a moment to contact him, either to taunt the injuries that never seem to get a chance to heal without gaining an addition, or to mock him for his ill choice of employees. Masochism has never existed in his personality, but perhaps he should alter that way of thinking, because there doesn't seem to be another word that could describe his own failure for struggling away from this sort of bind.
> 
> Thankfully, the helicopter is unscratched by the frenzy of bullets that just fired left and right without abandon earlier. He is hardly at a level where he could shoot with a hundred percent accuracy—it's not like he's practicing for that in any case. While his sense of self-worth has taken some extreme changes in the past couple of years, he still is reasonable enough to determine that his forte doesn't lie in firearms or in any activities that require physical exertion. Yet, he still survived the shootout just now, despite being outnumbered, despite lacking experience, despite being ambushed while protecting his suitcase. It must be the power of one's will, or something like that.
> 
> Carefully, he opens the latch to the helicopter, both of his guns gripped as solidly as he could in his hands, steadfastly ignoring the slick downpour covering the entire area with a dark gray mist. His eyesight is far from perfect, but it's suffice to let him know that there isn't anyone wise enough to lurk inside the helicopter and await his unlikely arrival. He loads the suitcase to the co-pilot's seat, before securing it with the combination of the built-in seatbelt and his own packed super-fiber rope. The contents of his luggage have no personal worth to him, but the papers and dismantled metals inside are crucial to securing the cooperation of the top mafia group in the continent; that's reason enough to take every little bit of extra precaution in handling the ordinary-looking suitcase.
> 
> In a moment of weakness, he retrieves his secure phone from the inner-sleeve-pocket of his long coat, only feeling the tiniest bit of disappointment and loss when there's no unread message or unanswered missed calls that greet his quick perusal. Seconds are trickling down faster than the tip-tap rhythm of the raindrops against the glass in front of him; he doesn't have time to waste, especially if he's just going to second-guess his preparedness to pilot a helicopter without any previous experience, amidst this unruly weather.
> 
> He isn't scared of crash-landing.
> 
> He's had worse injuries than that.
> 
> To be honest, he isn't even scared of not making it to the meeting with their rival group.
> 
> But he's scared of something, to the point that he shakily returns his phone to its previous hiding place, only to have his free hand grip the light wound on his elbow from the graze of a stray bullet from earlier.
> 
> He's scared of what will happen if—
> 
> As though to scold him for the unsightly direction of his thoughts, his phone vibrates against his heart, jolting him out of his reverie. With a slightly pink hand, he retrieves his phone once more and places it against his ear without bothering to check for the caller ID, because there should only be only one person who has direct access to this line. The tremors on his arms haven't ceased yet and he doesn't trust his voice to not waver; he waits for the other's words to spill out first – mocking, taunting, scolding.
> 
> "Stop wasting time," straightforward and uncaring about his state, "you only have nine minutes left."
> 
> The line goes dead immediately.
> 
> He blinks at the curt call, but isn't surprised at all by the rudeness. What surprised him, even for just a brief moment, is the fact that the other even bothered to pick up a phone and relay those words to him.
> 
> Once more, he's dumbstruck by how well the other knows his many weaknesses.
> 
> "You're right," he agrees to the sound of dial tone, "I shouldn't keep you waiting."
> 
> Without the previous unsteadiness, his fingers manage to unlock the helicopter's controls and in less than thirty seconds, the drumbeats of raindrops are drowned by the noisy flaps of the machine's wings.

* * *

Once there was a period of time that his dreams devoured his every waking moment, instantly rendering him unconscious at inopportune intervals. Expensive laboratory tests returned all negative for all variants, strains and types of sleeping sicknesses. Aside from his laughably weak constitution and his curiously bruised body, there was nothing that could even posit a suggestion as to why he randomly succumbs to dream-filled slumber. In a fit of uncharacteristic generosity, his family spent a considerable amount of money and time to establish a team of specialists to study his brain waves and to prick him with all sorts of needles to get a reading of his mind.

They gave up after three months of embarrassingly inconclusive results and he was locked inside a white room furnished with plastic furniture and paperback books. There were unfriendly and stoic nurses that milled around like programmed robots that had their mouths sewn shut. There were no newspapers or nonfiction titles, just as there weren't any electrical appliances aside from the glass-encased lights fixed upon the high ceiling. The walls were surrounded by squishy-soft padding, but there were undoubtedly some cameras and audio taps interspersed between indiscernible spaces.

He couldn't remember the exact number of days he spent inside the impersonal observation room, mostly because he was too dizzy to keep accurate tabs on mealtimes and the nurse rotation was randomized every so often. Even the less frequent visits of stiff-shouldered doctors with glinting glasses were hard to time and remember, but he chalked that up to the general hostility of the situation being so convenient for memory gaps.

He could remember though, feeling scorned and belittled by his own family. They sent him to the isolation room while expecting that he wouldn't understand the reason for his confinement. They spoke with him and used gentle, hushed voices, almost as if he were a wild animal ready to pounce. They told him that he was going to be cured by sleep specialists and dream investigators, when he could understand from the apathetic glint in the doctors' eyes that they were psychiatrists pooled around to diagnose the exact severity and combination of his mental illness.

Their observation diaries weren't hidden well at all and he could see every ugly handwritten line looping to form caustic observations about his behavior. He disagreed with most of the visible notes, primarily because the main focus was always about his failure to conform to his classmates at school was driving him to seek the sanctuary of his dreams. He was the last person who would ever deny that he loathed going to school and sitting side-by-side his peers who didn't know how to stop at taunting and jeering. He was also the last person who would ever claim otherwise to his preference of being left alone, preferably while locked inside a crumbling ancient library.

He wouldn't voluntarily retreat to his dreams though.

He would never.

Because his dreams weren't dreams—they were nightmares.

He felt nothing but terror and fatigue all throughout his dreams and when he woke up, he couldn't even feel a whisper of relief because his exhausted body knew that he would be surely returning to the embrace of those images that felt natural yet alien at the same time. Torture was the best way to describe the images that kept on flashing inside the sanctuary of his mind and he always woke up covered with sweat and tears and fear.

Eventually they started keeping logs of the nonsensical events that kept on replaying inside his head.

Eventually they asked him to describe the scenarios in more detail, with the sessions with his personal team of psychiatrists stretching for the entire time that he was able to keep his eyelids opened, while he was interrogated about the most miniscule details about the carpeting and about the texture of the walls. He answered them as best and as truthfully as he could, bringing him back to dreamland even during his waking moments. The questions kept on piling up after each answer he surrendered, and they kept on hinting about tall towers, meaningful cannons and being surrounded by beautiful women.

He sort of understood where they were heading with their suggestive inquiries, but he couldn't even visualize any of the things they were suggesting, not without continuously getting bombarded by the image of him speaking with someone so casually and so frighteningly over the phone and then getting welcomed by a shower of bullets that he miraculously survived. There weren't any meaningful glances at some sky-piercing architecture, just as there was an overwhelming lack of people with faces that he could recognize. His family and his classmates never starred on any of his visions and if it would stop the persistent interrogation then he would have lied and just provided an answer that could satisfy their malformed conclusions about his condition.

He couldn't allow himself to lie though.

He made up for his stubbornness by answering the other questions with as much clarity as he could. He answered about the furnishings and the exact shade of gold that lined each elevator button, just as he described the subtle indentation on the hallway on the twenty-third floor of the unknown building he always found himself at during the start of his dreams. He relayed the information about a hidden control pad underneath the numbers 81-99, along with what would happen once the 'R' button was pressed. He detailed the slight imperfections on one of the mirrors' surface, a strange thin line across the glass that was on the same level as his heart if he stood on his tiptoes. He told them every single detail that he could remember from the land of his dreams about the insides of the building that he has never seen outside of his shut eyes.

He provided them honesty and they came back hungry for more information, because the place he described apparently existed in the real world, with the descriptions from his dreams matching the reality so perfectly it was almost surreal. They investigated any and all possibilities of him somehow learning of the interior decoration of the lavish hotel, but he never had the chance to visit the place personally and the hotel was infamous for sealing the special suites located from the fifteenth floor and above to be off-limits from the media who would spoil the appearance of the luxurious hotel.

There was no other explanation apart from him suddenly gaining some psychic powers.

He was certainly the last person who had the qualifications of scoffing at specialists who spent not less than a decade studying their field, but he sincerely doubted that psychic powers could be as impertinently useless as night terrors that meant and signified nothing. Additionally, he was certainly the last person who would deserve something as bizarre as possessing psychic powers. He was nobody.

He spent two more weeks bombarded by questions and interrogations, but apparently that was already breaching the unspoken threshold that his parents have laid out regarding his disconnection from the outside world. Truthfully, he couldn't even remember the exact date that he was able to take a single step outside his isolation room; he could only recall that it actually happened – and that he was actually escorted by unsubtle bodyguards with broad shoulders and grim expressions. He learned of his destination half an hour afterwards and it was a massive network of interconnected buildings painted with untarnished white.

It was an escalator school, privately funded by the country's elite group of businessmen. It was well-known for its collection of affluent students that weren't any slouches when it came to their own intelligence quotas. It was a place where someone like him stood out like a sore thumb, even while he was inadvertently displaying his family's power by waltzing inside the secure gates while flanked by two bodyguards at each conceivable direction.

He couldn't remember much else aside from the singular feeling of being an outcast once again, even if he was surrounded by a lot of people unlike his situation inside the isolation room. The sky could have been the color of unsightly blood-red and he couldn't have remembered that either. He simply walked like a spineless marionette, with each footstep dragged across the evenly paved walkways. He merely kept his head down, gaze unfocused on the dirt-free floors. He stopped moving when the person in front of him halted; he resumed his walk when the back in front of him started to gain distance.

Strangely enough, on the otherwise unremarkable day, there was only one other thing that he could remember.

His mind was continually battered by nightmares that made no lick of sense to him and to everybody else, rendering him unable to keep much else within his mind's grasp. Oddly enough, it was on the otherwise bland day that his nightmares and his reality aligned once more, and it was during a single moment that the static noise at the back of his head ceased to play. He tripped over nothing – a part of his body's insistence at making him the butt of jokes and derision – and while his arms flailed about, he failed to hold on to any of the bodyguards that were positioned just outside of his reach. He was used to his own inability to control his movements though and the familiar sensation of free-fall was enough to kick his own instinct into action that was virtually meaningless in the long run. Still, he was able to cushion the blow to his pride by landing solidly on his knees instead of falling flat on his face, which was already a considerable achievement in his books.

Despite his familiarity with pain, he still hissed out in pain when he fell. The procession of his bodyguards simply stopped, but nobody offered to hoist him up or to help him stand back up. It was on par with his expectations of the orders his father must have handed over to them. He didn't even waste a moment to harbor a smidgen of resentment then.

He could remember it though: the coincidence of him looking up in that moment, just as a teenager was making his way towards his general direction. He could remember the teenager's appearance of being the peculiar mixture of disheveled and uncluttered at once. He could remember the teenager's statuesque face lathered in ice, even while those eyes burned like wildfire. He could remember that moment clearly, until one of the bodyguards hired to protect him took a single step forward and blocked his view of the other teenager.

He stood up after a minute.

The walk towards the registrar's office resumed then and he didn't see the teenager again before he ended up leaving so he could return to his cage. He wouldn't be due to report back to the school until the hospital signed his release papers anyway.

The wait for his release took shorter than everyone expected.

Since that day, his sudden descent to slumber ceased.

His nightmares didn't stop at all, but his condition was much more bearable compared to three months prior.

Since that day, his nightmares finally included the continuation to his endless repeat of getting ambushed on the helicopter pad of the high-rise luxurious hotel and then successfully managing to escape from the clutches of death.

His nightmares didn't become lighter – if anything, they were more tiring and exhausting to dream through.

Since that day, his nightmares have started to feature other people's faces and appearances.

—…strangely, or not, the teenager's face started appearing on his dreams.

* * *

Fifteen years of existence in this world is enough knock some sense even into the thickest of heads. Contrary to popular belief, he isn't stupid or dim-witted, at least, not when using the basest meaning of the word. His test scores are steadily climbing up the records: be it within his own year level or amongst the national panel listings; his increasing numbers are easily overshadowed by his overwhelmingly weak presence and infamous failures.

He briefly entertains the notion of spending the night inside the school's infirmary instead of trudging his way back to the dorms. Dusk has already enveloped the sky with indigo fingertips that will soon encroach upon the vanishing sunlight with an entire mass of darkness. For some reason, his bullies are more inclined to make their presence known once the lights that hang overhead are limited to strictly artificial ones, save for the occasional nights that the city smog is thin enough to showcase a little bit of the stars or the moon.

The option of calling the hotline for the Payne Family's contact centers scattered all over the country doesn't even cross his mind; he can definitely go through the security checks and speak with the headmistress of all the employed servants, even hang onto the line long enough to request a chauffeur to pick him up and bring him to any of the hotel suites permanently reserved for his family. Realistically though, his request will remain buried for a couple of hours before getting granted, because even his family's own employees know how to recognize the uneven hierarchy of this world. While his heart has long ceased to squeeze uncomfortably tight whenever he receives such arctic cold reception whenever he sets foot within his family's property's one-kilometer radius, he certainly isn't the type to enthusiastically and idiotically give others more ammunition when it comes to hurting him.

In the end, as always, he makes his way towards the dorm room paid for by his parents' money, even if they want nothing else but to sever him from the entire Payne Family line. Artificial lighting illuminates the paved pathways linking the infirmary building to rest of his school's property. His footsteps slow down as he approaches the school library, archaic and imposing enough to appear like a haunted house despite having the fastest computers of this time installed inside its walls.

More tempting than the idea of hiding away inside a room doused with the pungent but incredibly familiar smell of antiseptic, he considers dodging the security check before the locking of the library for the night. His simple cellphone is in his pocket and it isn't too simple to not have a long battery life and a built-in flashlight; it shouldn't be too challenging to hide behind rows of bookshelves and simply sit on the carpeted floor and read for the entire night.

Before he knows it, he's already changing his destination to the library, his bandaged hands already taking out his library card for swiping against the security door. Nobody bats an eye at the bandages adorning his hands and creeping out from his shirt's V-neck. The ones who know of him also know enough to expect such misfortune; the ones who don't know him have no reason to pay any special attention to his injuries.

Recently, he's been favoring learning more things about cybersecurity and technological superweapons; there's something to be said about how power still remains effectively powerful, even if wielded by machines thousands of kilometers away. He's hardly an expert when it comes to strength, but he doesn't need to be anything else but a weakling in order to appreciate and understand that those with power affects everything else, whether said everything else has provided consent or not.

Library lock time isn't due for another hour, so he makes himself as comfortable as he can in a mostly empty section of the library; most of the staff and students crowd on the computer database section, since paperless books and electronic learning are the rage these days. Only the really old-fashioned professors bother with actual paper books anymore, so his chosen area is mostly deserted, even during the library's busiest days. Lack of visitors make the paper book section a lot less maintained compared to everywhere else, but that's more than fine with him; he's here to pass time while filling his mind with things that doesn't have to do with how his back hurts even when he's not leaning against the thinned-out cushion of the library's wobbly swivel chair.

"…huh, so this is where you're at."

The familiar voice cuts through the smell of aged paper and mess of words, but regrettably enough, he has grown accustomed to this sort of interruption for him to feel more than a twinge of surprise. He lifts his eyes from the book, his fingers already reaching for a bookmark so he can return to the penultimate chapter filled with a summary of equations and concepts that should tie the wealth of information with one neat, if not incredibly large, bundle.

"It's rare for you to venture here." Seeing the other inside a library is odd enough, but seeing the other's favored all-black attire is even more jarring when viewed against a backdrop of bookshelves. "…Studying for an exam?"

"As if," the other snorts derisively, haughtily looking down at him. "It's not like I need to be a nerd like you."

Ash Vlastvier's grades aren't failing, but it's doubtful that his numbers are wholly because of his own mediocre attempts at studying. Nevertheless, whether his grades are composed by the collective fear of this school's staff or not, the fact remains that there's no need for Ash to exert any effort on anything that doesn't interest him.

"…That's true," he concedes evenly, but he's getting confused. Panic hasn't arrived to his system yet, but it might, quite soon. Bewilderment is bound to show up on his expression, because there's nothing more mind-wrecking than a scenario of Ash Vlastvier spending three minutes in a civil conversation with his regular punching bag.

Avoiding the bullies awaiting his return to the dorms after four days of being dismissed to the infirmary seems to apparently do nothing aside from pushing him to a more violent direction, only cushioned by a few moments of undisturbed peace with some books.

"Hmph, I'm getting really annoyed by your personality."

"…Even telling me what you dislike about me isn't going to change anything." It's not that he wants to be oppressed forever. More importantly, it's not like he endeavors to make Ash not dislike anything. "…I can't change anything."

"And that's why you're weak," Ash sneers nastily, raising a leg slightly so that he can kick at the wobbly wheels of his swivel chair, sending him flying to the other end of the long wooden table.

He narrowly avoids sending books tumbling down to the floor, but he feels a little winded at the sudden motion. The notice for closing time echoes in the barely functional speakers over this area, but the sound simply enters one ear and exist another; he stands up with wobbly knees in a futile effort to lessen the other's creativity when it comes to tormenting him. He just left the infirmary but 'damaged' seems to be his permanent state since enrolling in this school.

"I know I'm weak," and there's only about a hundred reasons why, "but I can't change anything. I know I can't change anything."

His voice doesn't break as he admits those words. He rarely indulges in the act of pouring out his concerns to a disinterested person, but his back might be in more pain than he imagined. He doesn't expect anything from his tormentor aside from more pain, so he doesn't even roll his eyes when the other's first response is to snort once more.

"Weakness is all you enjoy being," Ash gestures to the books piled up like a great fortress on his chosen spot, "aside from spending countless hours of studying."

"…weakness is all about not knowing anything," Ash's footsteps sound like heavy drops of poison on a steady intravenous drip, slowly and mercilessly dooming one to a fate worse than death, "and yet you're _intelligent_. It's fascinating."

"I think the fact that you find it fascinating…" He trails off, slightly mesmerized by the other's closeness, to the point that it almost feels scorching entrapped in this room with a full-blast airconditioner. "…is even more fascinating."

Ash's smile is a cruel thin line across a face made of nothing but severe angles. "Nobody cares about what you think."

"I know."

And reality is so much easier to accept when he's being punched right into the gut with it.

* * *

> Four hours after the beginning of what could be considered as a 'peaceful negotiation' with the Olympia Family, of course there is still no resolution within sight. Composure is still the main thing ruling his frame, strings from the marionette master invisible but heavy against his limbs.
> 
> With sleek black suits and slicked-back hair, countless bodyguards form a rigid outline across the walls of the meeting room; despite the intelligent appearance, thugs remain thugs, so the papers and folders with the proposal details aren't distributed to their hands. Olympia's top brass didn't deign to grace this simple hideout with their presence, but that's to be expected. A permanent, official answer of cooperation isn't the goal for today—what he needs to achieve is to get their attention with the suitcase's contents that are arranged like a full-course meal ready to be devoured. Kilometers away from here, his companion is waiting for his accomplishment; maybe kilometers away from here, Olympia's top executives are watching the unfolding events through monitored security feeds.
> 
> "We'll give you the complete instructions for assembly once the final agreement has been signed," he speaks while avoiding the temptation of sighing through his words. He makes a show of fidgeting and fumbling with a fountain pen, before letting it clink down to the shiny, wooden table that serves as the barrier between armed men. "As a sign of goodwill, I've even left the sample dismantled—you can inspect it for bugs. And then I'll assemble it in front of your eyes."
> 
> The lead representative from Olympia still doesn't look convinced—as expected.
> 
> "You can even record the entire process," he finally offers, making sure to adjust his expression to show a little bit of resignation and hesitation. The point is to appear desperate and eager for Olympia to accept their proposal of being the supplier of high-grade, never-before-seen robotic weaponry. He needs to make the rival family feel in control of the entire situation, like the entire future of the entire planet depends on their acceptance. They need to think that he doesn't have anything to hide.
> 
> "We can just rely on the recordings and then kill you right afterwards," there's a particularly nasty leer on the guy's face, laughing like an oversized imp on the lead representative's right side, "maybe we'll even be kind enough to ship you back in one piece."
> 
> "I appreciate the sentiment; I've heard that being cut up to fit on parcel boxes can be quite painful."
> 
> There's a moment of stunned silence after that, so he hastily covers for the sudden spike of sarcasm by picking up his fallen pen and twirling it again between his fingers. He feigns a nervous laugh that's only half-forced, demurely keeping his head bowed down slightly as a sign of deference and submission. Before he could even sit down on this table, he has already been stripped of most of the weapons concealed inside his coat, but he still has an ace literally up on his sleeve, so his voice remains calm and steady even as he senses their suspicion rise by a couple of notches. "Also, perfecting the device and its materials took ten years—if you are feeling so inclined to spend that amount of time, then I suppose there's no demerit even if you do kill me after my demonstration."
> 
> An awkward cough escapes one of the bodyguards lined up against the wall, but nobody else joins in contributing to that reaction. He lets his eyes pass over that particular guard's frame, cataloguing the slight differences in posture and expression, and concludes that said guard with less composure compared to everyone else is the one who holds the highest rank amongst everyone gathered here. The uniform does well in masking the prouder-than-average square of shoulders, while the standardized appearance successfully gels everyone into one cohesive unit of similarity. But there's something to be said about the aura of power, something that can't be masked even by the best disguises. He can still pick apart the slight nuances in the other's gait; he files that information inside his mind for future reference.
> 
> "Pfft, you're pretty ballsy, aren't you?" Amusement colors the lead representative's words after a couple more seconds pass. "That could get you killed very quickly, you know?"
> 
> "I've never been described as ballsy before," he defers with a confused sort of frown, faking innocence by widening his eyes, "so I'm not sure what else to say."
> 
> Truthfully, there are a lot of things that he can say, but none of them will hasten this situation to the scenario that he's aiming for. Discreetly, he lets his eyes wander around the room, noncommittally staring at random corners while attempting to catch any sort of signal from the disguised guard. There's a slight hand gesture as fleeting as a breath of air, but it happens—and just a few seconds after and the lead representative clears his throat to capture his full attention once more.
> 
> "Go ahead and demonstrate the initial assembly after we scan each component."
> 
> Everything is proceeding according to plan.
> 
> He makes a show of clasping his hands together in relief, while keeping a smile devoid of any smug superiority at having predicted this outcome from the onset.
> 
> With a surprising amount of confidence that has eluded him for the bigger part of his life, he carefully uncovers each component and hands them over to the security team with their bulky detectors. He lines up each piece of equipment that has been deemed safe and secure by the scanners. He coaxes a blush to rise on his cheeks as he spots the recording equipment blatantly being assembled at each possible angle, so that Olympia can have a shot at assembling the weaponry on their own without relying on some upstart engineer from some upstart group.
> 
> That level of betrayal and intellectual property infringement are actually within the predictions as well; they expect Olympia to successfully mimic the assembly and usage of this weaponry within twelve days, just as they expect Olympia to notify them about arranging a meeting so that a formal contract can be signed, only for it to be a trap so that they would be the test subjects for the weaponry's effectiveness.
> 
> Everything is within their web of expectations.
> 
> Carefully repressing the urge to smile in a rare display of triumph, he mechanically lets his fingers touch each material with practiced ease, steadily building a weapon that hasn't been developed in this era yet. Just like building a castle from its foundations, he slowly slides each component in place, without any room for error. He makes sure to maintain an acceptable distance away from the machine he's constructing in front of curious eyes and robotic lenses; it won't do to accidentally obstruct their view of the machine that they're inevitably going to duplicate without any sense of guilt or honor.
> 
> He tries not to go through the motions dispassionately, attempting to inject a little bit of interest and investment in his actions. If he appears too disinterested, the Olympia representatives might think twice about his motives; there's an infinitesimally small chance of Olympia somehow realizing that the machinery and its subsequent copying are both meant to entrap the mafia family into a situation where most of its operations will be compromised.
> 
> …There's no shred of bitter fear in his system though.
> 
> Unthinkable for someone like him that simply magnetizes tormentors to take turns into making him a punching bag, but he isn't scared of what could happen here at all. He's all alone inside a lesser lair of one of the world's strongest underground forces; just one misstep is enough to jeopardize their entire plan.
> 
> "It's done," he proclaims after fifteen minutes of continuous assembly, smiling slightly for the camera directly in front of him. The finished product looks harmless and shiny, almost like a particularly expensive silver piece of jewelry. There's nothing remotely harmless about that device once it's activated, but that deceptive appearance is just one of its appealing qualities. Nobody expects anything from something unintimidating lately, probably because everybody's been conditioned to fear the sight of blatantly displayed power rather than the more subtle threats.
> 
> "…That's it?"
> 
> "Yes." What else are they expecting? He promised them an innocuous-seeming device that can annihilate a small town, given the correct tweaking. It's not like he will assemble the device only for it to detonate on the spot, so are they hoping for some explosions? "This is it. Feel free to test it, hopefully somewhere that wouldn't be inspected by the police. The explosion residues are… unpleasant, to put it lightly."
> 
> "Pfft, I think we can proceed our work procedures without your input," the lead representative's words are a mix of bite and amusement, but that's probably because he's still torn between disbelief and awe at the compact size of the bomb that, once properly expanded and developed, can be a non-radioactive counterpart to the more well-known atomic bomb.
> 
> His reports that are now being collected by the small fries surrounding their meeting table all dropped tantalizing mentions of how this device is the lost sibling of the nuclear catastrophe.
> 
> It's a good thing that he doesn't have any qualms about permanently incarnating lies into solid form.
> 
> An AI-powered bomb is hardly a novel concept, but what this device possesses is something completely different from a nuclear bomb's destructive power—but nonetheless something critical to tilting the balance of the world to favor one side.
> 
> …But it's not like Olympia needs to know about the little details.
> 
> "So," he clears his throat nervously, not because he's particularly needy for their attention, but because he wants them to think that he feels anxious inside a room filled with unsavory characters, "we…we're looking forward to a partnership with Olympia."
> 
> "Yeah, yeah, we'll contact you."
> 
> Dismissive—as expected.
> 
> Well, with their attention focused solely on observing the tiny device resting on the wooden table, it's not like he can fault them for not being more hospitable.
> 
> He bows down for the nth time today and takes that as the cue to get out of here. He graciously allows a thick blindfold to obscure his vision, just as he generously allows a loud gasp as cold handcuffs rest on his wrists. A gag of some sort covers his mouth, which is just fine, since it seems that they're not interested to hear him tell them that there's no point to all these effort of concealing their hideout's location. Though, even without the gag over his lips, it's not like he'll give away their advantage just like that.
> 
> What he wants to ask though, is if Olympia is so desperate for money and technology that they're driving him to a deserted warehouse at the edge of the city, far away from the five-star hotel he came from and even further away from the abandoned villa where he landed the helicopter he has prepared beforehand.
> 
> It's almost laughable how they're so very willing to steal his transportation from him.
> 
> It's a good thing that even that petty theft is included in their expectations.
> 
> Even if they inspect the entire aircraft, they wouldn't find pertinent information. The identification papers and cards left behind all point to a false lead halfway across the globe, just as the license plate leads to a long-defunct underground religious group from the eighteenth century. To make matters interesting, each button on the control pad has been painstakingly inoculated with a slow-acting hybrid of a poisonous virus. He has a running bet with a certain someone on which method would eventually annihilate the Olympia branch that he visited, so the second option for their destruction lies on the computer-activated microscopic robotic bombs that he implanted on every piece of paper and card he left behind on the craft. Both the virus and the bomb are his doing, but he's hoping for the success of his particle-size bombs for a number of reasons.
> 
> He feels the car's engine humming quiet down as the long-winded journey reaches an end. Noiselessly, he lets them bodily drag him to an alley that smells like rotting mountains of uncollected garbage. The guards' steady footsteps are followed by sounds of sticky liquid clinging and falling back to slimy ground. The steady drumbeat of the forecasted rain is absent—as expected, he's now at least a hundred kilometers from the capital, just barely out of the rainclouds' range.
> 
> And because he's expecting it, he even lets himself sink to his knees as he receives a blow to the back of his head, just before he hears them report back to their superiors about finally disposing of the nuisance.
> 
> He shifts slightly when he feels the unclean liquid seep through his pants, but he refrains from making any unnecessary movement until his ears can't pick anything up aside from his own even breathing.
> 
> Robbed of his phone, wallet and coat, he will probably look like some rich idiot who got what he deserved from wandering to this location without any bodyguards. He sighs, his own breath warming his lips uncomfortably, as he bends his wrists with no small amount of pain, but with great amount of precision. Metal handcuffs clink down to the dirty ground—cracked low-grade aged bricks, covered with thinned asphalt, judging from the impact sound.
> 
> With his hands freed, he unties the blindfold, then the gag, before he finally rises back to his feet.
> 
> Despite the assault on his nose, the throbbing on the back of his head and the sticky sensation on his knees, he's mollified by the fact that his observations are mostly correct.
> 
> As expected, the lackeys that went with him disobeyed the express orders given to them; instead of bringing him for some 'let's torture information out of him'-session on the abandoned warehouse a little bit further ahead, near the unregulated docks utilized by most mafia groups and illegal businesses that trade contraband materials, they followed the orders of the lead representative's right-hand man. Their disobedience and general failure when it comes to following orders are on their calculations too, that's why he doesn't have any shred of fear now or earlier, when they were delivering what they thought was a killing blow.
> 
> They obviously aren't aware of who he really is if they think that a flimsy hit like that is enough to permanently take him out of the picture, when he has surprisingly lived through an entire lifetime of sadistic and incredibly creative bullying.
> 
> Weather forecasts place this area, one hundred and two kilometers away from the capital, to be visited by rain in two hours' time. Placated or not, it's not within his plans to be drenched by the rain once more. He absentmindedly rubs his wrists as he walks further inside the alley littered by bits and pieces of this city's failures and pasts, his eyes narrowing as he begins to struggle to recognize the designated spot he prepared weeks beforehand. Said spot is too far away from the entrance to this alley, but not yet on the dead end; a nondescript box without any labels and without any quality that can arouse suspicion.
> 
> Cardboard is easy enough to dismantle for a weakling like him, so it doesn't take him long to open the package that has a change of clothes, a new wallet filled with money and cards, and a new modified cellphone. The place is quiet enough so that he can immediately detect if someone else is in the vicinity; the likelihood of someone stumbling upon his currently half-naked form, as he scans his body for any implanted bugs, is zero. He only finds two tracking bugs tucked into his pants' pockets, so he deposits that inside the small bag that he prepared in advance, making a mental note to remember disposing that on a garbage bin in front of a police station.
> 
> Looking less haggard than a couple of minutes earlier, he makes his way out of the alley, keeping his footsteps light to not make any noise whatsoever.
> 
> Because everything is within their expectations, there's a car waiting three blocks away, void of a driver; but even with his inexperience with driving, as soon as he plugs in his modified phone to the port on the dashboard, he just needs to type in a set of instructions and the car's movements will be taken care of.
> 
> He remembers to make a detour to a police station twenty kilometers away from the capital so he can drop off the tracking device they generously equipped him with.
> 
> Only then does he give in to the urge to check his phone for new messages.
> 
> There's none.
> 
> Like most of the things today, that's also within his expectations.
> 
> It takes two hours and four minutes before the car actually reaches its intended destination—the parking lot of an apartment complex catering to bachelors and postgraduate students that have small budgets and even smaller complaints about tight living spaces. He keeps his head bowed down as he narrowly avoids bumping into one of his neighbors who simply mutter foul words as his even fouler appearance apparently offends the other's sensibilities.
> 
> His unit's door looks similar to the eighty-nine other doors in this complex, save perhaps for the rusted 01-J on the same level as his forehead.
> 
> …But then again, not one of the other doors has fingerprint recognition scanner installed on the doorknobs; not one of the other doors has security cameras installed on the slightly-loosened hinges.
> 
> There's no beeping sound or acknowledgment voice prompts to inform him that he passed his own security checkpoints; his door swinging open is enough of a confirmation.
> 
> He is welcomed, as usual, by the wide back of his wooden bookcase that provides an illusion of privacy or something like that. He squeezes past the narrow leftover space, his right shoulder knocking awkwardly against the peeling paint of his walls, his left shoulder brushing against the aged wood of his bookcase.
> 
> Contrary to what one would expect from a poor, struggling brat living in a typical commoner's apartment building, the world beyond that bookcase that has another security recognition checkpoint installed is very… organized, to put it lightly.
> 
> "…huh, so you're here."
> 
> The voice of the most regular intruder to his bachelor pad reaches him as soon as he steps over the threshold that separates the outside world from this.
> 
> Renting a ground-level unit granted him the opportunity to build an underground extension without alerting the landlady; his rented space is much more spacious than the others', with the modification in place.
> 
> "It all went as planned," he doesn't smile or sigh with relief at the sight of the other person, safe and strong as always. "I think –"
> 
> "Nobody cares about what you think."
> 
> "That's true," he concedes that point, just like he did so many times before, neither because of favoritism nor because of some misguided affection, but because it's the truth.
> 
> Nevertheless, a little bit unlike before, he actually takes a couple of steps closer to the man seated like a king on his throne, the glow of computers and monitors for security feeds acting as a foreboding backdrop to the other's form.
> 
> "Everything's proceeding as expected," he reports reverently, kneeling this time without any assistance from some blunt object to the back of his head, hands not restrained by any sort of metal, but by the restrictions he's placed upon himself.
> 
> During some moments that rarely come in-between his research projects and his daily reports, he sometimes questions the way the world works, about the way fate plays pranks upon the paths of people simply wishing to exist with minimal effort.
> 
> Sometimes.
> 
> Sometimes, he thinks about how odd it is for everything to end up like this.
> 
> As someone from the Payne family, living in a commoner's building is unheard of.
> 
> As Oliver, living surrounded by high-tech machines that are unheard of in this era is unbelievable.
> 
> As Oliver Payne, living alongside the one that has tormented him for the most part of his existence is just plain cruel.
> 
> Yet he's here.
> 
> There has never been a moment where he addressed the other by his name outside of his thoughts and the practice extends to the present time.
> 
> Instead of calling the other by his name and instead of facing the other's gaze, he kneels and keeps his head down and breathes for the sake of this one person's plan.
> 
> He sighs, this time, as ice-cold hands that know nothing but to deliver pain cups his face.
> 
> There's a dull sort of ache that spreads on his entire body.
> 
> There's Ash Vlastvier in front of him.
> 
> There's nothing else.
> 
> "…My King."


End file.
